The Newport Gulls are a wooden-bat,

collegiate summer baseball Collegiate summer baseball leagues are amateur baseball leagues in the United States and Canada featuring players who have attended at least one year of college and have at least one year of athletic eligibility remaining. Generally, they operat ...

team based in

Newport, Rhode Island Newport is an American seaside city on Aquidneck Island in Newport County, Rhode Island. It is located in Narragansett Bay, approximately southeast of Providence, south of Fall River, Massachusetts, south of Boston, and northeast of New Yor ...

. The Newport Gulls Baseball Club is a member of both the

New England Collegiate Baseball League The New England Collegiate Baseball League (NECBL) is a 13-team collegiate summer baseball wooden bat league founded in 1993 and sanctioned by the NCAA and Major League Baseball. Each NECBL team plays an eight-week, 44-game schedule during June ...

and the NECBL's Coastal Division. Since

2001 The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a multi-national coalition in an invasion of Afghanist ...

, the Gulls have played at

Cardines Field Cardines Field is a baseball stadium located at 20 America’s Cup Avenue in Newport, Rhode Island. It is believed to be one of the oldest ballparks in the United States and has been called "a small urban gem of a ballpark". The field serves as ...

History

An NECBL expansion team, the club was founded in Cranston in

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The ''Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently s ...

. The Gulls have been one of the NECBL's most successful teams since their inception, winning six Fay Vincent, Sr. Cups as champions of the NECBL, and eleven division titles. While most teams playing at Cardines average attendance in the dozens or, at most, a few hundred per game, the Newport Gulls, since moving to Newport in

, have helped bring the field back to its former glory days of the mid-twentieth century, averaging over 2,300 fans for a regular-season home game. During the 2004 season alone, the Gulls attracted over 50,000 fans through just 26 home games, with sellout crowds in excess of 3,000 people. Following the 2006 season, the Gulls set a team and league record (since surpassed) for regular season home attendance, totaling 42,424 fans after 21 games, along with the league's all-time best win–loss record of 32-10. In 15 seasons in Newport, the Gulls have never failed to win fewer than 25 regular season games. Cardines Field - view from third base grandstand

Cardines Field - view from third base grandstand

Newport Gulls games often feature fan participation activities between innings, along with concessions, low ticket prices, and a safe atmosphere. This reputation has only added to their popularity, not only among tourists passing through Newport, but with many

Aquidneck Island Aquidneck Island, also known as Rhode Island, is an island in Narragansett Bay in the state of Rhode Island. The total land area is , which makes it the largest island in the bay. The 2020 United States Census reported its population as 60,109. ...

children and families, as well. The active crowds, historic atmosphere, and competent club management have allowed the Gulls to recruit some of the best college baseball players in the nation, with talent rivaling the

Cape Cod League The Cape Cod Baseball League (CCBL or Cape League) is a collegiate summer baseball wooden bat league located on Cape Cod in the U.S. state of Massachusetts. One of the nation's premier collegiate summer leagues, the league boasts over one thousa ...

. Since 2001, Cardines Field has hosted the Gulls through 10 regular season division titles, 10 postseason division titles, and 6 league championships, along with other notable awards, such as the RI Governor's Cup, Pell Bridge Series Championship, and Dunkin' Donuts Cup. The Gulls have also begun an annual tradition of playing Team USA in an exhibition around

Independence Day An independence day is an annual event commemorating the anniversary of a nation's independence or statehood, usually after ceasing to be a group or part of another nation or state, or more rarely after the end of a military occupation. Many ...

every July, in what is often a sellout game. In July 2005, the Gulls hosted the NECBL All-Star Game and Home Run Derby at Cardines, which was a major event for the park, the league, and the City of Newport. The Gulls later hosted the 2010 NECBL All-Star Game, and were scheduled to host the event a third time on July 17, 2016. The Gulls and the NECBL as a whole have received national attention with the addition of live

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, p ...

video webcasts to the normal audio webcast of games, effectively doing so at minimum cost in infrastructure. On opening night of the

2006 NECBL season 6 (six) is the natural number following 5 and preceding 7. It is a composite number and the smallest perfect number. In mathematics Six is the smallest positive integer which is neither a square number nor a prime number; it is the second ...

, the Newport Gulls were the first to implement this new technology, bringing summer collegiate baseball, as well as Cardines Field, into a new era. These changes and improvements were implemented under the direction of team Director of Broadcast Operations and Media Relations Nicholas Lima from 2005-2015. This attention is more than welcome for Gulls players, who, as amateur college athletes, hope to be drafted by

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (A ...

teams. The recent surge in recognition and popularity of the Newport Gulls organization throughout the professional baseball world has provided for an increase in the number of Gulls players to be drafted every year. The professionalism and expanse of the Gulls media operations has made it a model summer collegiate teams around the country attempt to emulate, and the Gulls internship program is considered a premier stepping stone for college students seeking a career in sports management. The Gulls are the most successful franchise in NECBL history, having won the Fay Vincent Sr. Cup in 2001, 2002, 2005, 2009, 2012, and most recently in 2014. The 2012 Gulls were ''Perfect Game''s unofficial national champion, and NECBL's first team to be so honored.

Attendance

The following is a list of Gulls attendance figures at Cardines Field dating back to the 2001 season, when the team began using the facility.

Postseason appearances

Notable players

Notable games

*July 29, 2002: Rafael Lara plays all nine positions in a nine-inning game against the Mill City All-Americans. On the

pitcher's mound A baseball field, also called a ball field or baseball diamond, is the field upon which the game of baseball is played. The term can also be used as a metonym for a baseball park. The term sandlot is sometimes used, although this usually refers ...

for the seventh inning, Lara got credit for the Gulls 5-4 win. *July 1, 2005: Four Gulls

pitcher In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws ("pitches") the baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of retiring a batter, who attempts to either make contact with the pitched ball or draw ...

s throw a

no-hitter In baseball, a no-hitter is a game in which a team was not able to record a hit. Major League Baseball (MLB) officially defines a no-hitter as a completed game in which a team that batted in at least nine innings recorded no hits. A pitcher wh ...

. After a first-batter walk, the next 27 Danbury Westerner batters are retired in order. *August 8, 2005: Gulls' second baseman Jeff Miller turns an

unassisted triple play In baseball, an unassisted triple play occurs when a defensive player makes all three outs by himself in one continuous play, without his teammates making any assists. Neal Ball was the first to achieve this in Major League Baseball (MLB) under ...

in a NECBL championship series game. *July 21, 2006: Three Gulls pitchers throw a no-hitter against the

North Adams SteepleCats North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography. Etymology The word ''north'' is ...

. *July 4, 2008: Gulls pitcher Chase Reid strikes out an NECBL-record 19

Torrington Twisters The New Bedford Bay Sox were a baseball team that played in the New England Collegiate Baseball League, a collegiate summer baseball league operating in the New England region of the United States. The team was located in New Bedford, Massachuset ...

Notes

References

External links

* Official site of th
Newport Gulls
{{Rhode Island Sports New England Collegiate Baseball League teams Newport County, Rhode Island Amateur baseball teams in Rhode Island College sports teams in Rhode Island 1998 establishments in Rhode Island Baseball teams established in 1998